cultivating hope
I love that Adam’s first job in the garden was as a tend-er.
The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.
God planted and grew the big, gorgeous garden; Adam was there to cultivate and nurture it. To work in it and guard it. To take care of God’s goodness.
I think we’re still supposed to be tend-ers. We tend the hope and courage God plants inside our souls when we read what he says to us. When we listen to the Spirit. When we hold fast to the good news.
When we wake up before sunrise and see the sun peeking over the horizon, calling the clouds together all pink and orange and pale blue, we feel bits of hope springing up, surrounding us. When we visit a new mama in the hospital and hold her precious newborn, so small and fresh and snuggly, we feel hope surge inside. When we plant a tiny green sapling in the dark, rich soil and believe it will grow and grow and someday become a big shade tree in our yard, that is hope.
Those kinds of things are easy to identify. And they are easy to see. But they are not the only ways God places hope inside of us. God plants hope in the smallest ways. In the secret places. Love notes.
I don’t know how God communicates his love to you. I only know how he communicates his love to me. But I do know he loves all his kids the same, and so I know—because I truly believe what I read in the Bible—that God is always communicating his love to his children.
He’s planting seeds of hope in our hearts—that is his job. And it is our job to cultivate the hope.
quote excerpted from Unafraid (trusting God in an unsafe world) at booksellers everywhere: